How Gritty Are You?

If there were an instant, foolproof way to create a feminine voice, don’t you imagine that with all your internet searches, time and energy you would have found it by now?

It is richly intuitive that perseverance is part of the formula for success. Then why hasn’t your hard work paid off? Why are you still unhappy with your voice?

Grit = passion & persistence for very long-term goals.

Perseverance is only a part of the equation. Kathe shares her recent find of this gold mine of information expertly presented by Angela Duckworth, PhD in the Hidden Brainpodcast and in her best selling book Grit.

To listen for yourself to the original podcast that inspired Kathe.

The Hidden Brain Podcast is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Kara McGuirk-Alison, Maggie Penman and Max Nesterak.
By subscribing to the Exceptional Voice Podcast, you’ll be notified of new episodes as they become available. We’d love it if you would provide your positive review in iTunes. These reviews greatly increase the traffic to this site and help us share our knowledge and experience with others.

From schools and healthcare to immigration and identification, policies affecting trans people are advancing every day. However, we are still quite a far distance from trans people living equally and fairly under the law as compared to their cis-gender peers.

Kathe and Brynn discuss existing laws and policies, and how we might inform ourselves to effectively advocate, thus helping to improve the lives of transgender people.

In 2011, NCTE and the National LGBTQ Task Force released the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. This was the largest study ever conducted, with over 6,400 transgender and gender non-conforming people participating. The results showed that 63% of these participants had experienced significant acts of discrimination. The impact of this high frequency of discrimination has far-reaching negative effects on trans people’s quality of life and ability to sustain themselves financially or emotionally.

Participants reported that they had faced:

Loss of job due to bias

Eviction due to bias

School bullying/harassment so severe the respondent had to drop out

Teacher bullying

Physical assault due to bias

Sexual assault due to bias

Homelessness because of gender identity/expression

Loss of relationship with partner or children due to gender identity/expression

The transgender community has experienced significant societal recognition in the last few years. Dramatic and reality TV shows have hit the small screen with huge ratings and viewership. Celebrities have come-out as trans. The Obama Administration has put measures in place prohibiting discrimination against transgender federal employees. Our president also named the first openly transgender political appointee, and he was the first president to use the word “transgender” in a speech.

Just a few years ago, the GLAAD/Harris Interactive poll reported that only 8% of Americans say they personally know someone who is transgender. Since all the current positive and not so positive news stories that have exploded onto news channels and social media, and since Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out last year, hardly a day goes by where we don’t hear a story about a transgender person.

In a 2015 HRC (Human Rights Campaign) survey, 66 percent of people who said they know a transgender individual expressed favorable feelings toward them—compared with 13 percent of people who don’t have trans friends, co-workers, or family members.

Yet, supportive, caring and knowledgeable health care systems still lack a basic understanding what it means to be transgender, what gender dysphoria really is and how it is NOT a mental illness. Transgender people are NOT getting the care they need.

This podcast was adapted from a video interview. CLICK HERE to see the video.

Be exceptional!

By subscribing to the Exceptional Voice Podcast, you’ll be notified of new episodes as they become available. It would help us if you provide your review of in iTunes; it will greatly increase the traffic to this site and help us share our knowledge and experience with others.

Confidence in ourselves can mean a world of difference between a woman who is able to live her dreams and one who is not. One of the ways we develop confidence and a strong sense of ourselves is to have a support network. We, as women, need a solid foundation upon which to stand. Who are the women that make up your base? Mentoring is essential in helping you push aside that negative self-talk and replace with a strong focus on the woman you really are. Who are your mentors and role models?

In this podcast, Kathe and her two daughters, Shannon and Meghann share how they define themselves as powerful women and how they express their power in the world.

Melissa Kurrle is a member of our Exceptional Voice team and will be hosting our podcasts. The first podcast – You are your own perfect snowflake is authored by Kathe Perez, Speech-Language Pathologist and co-creator of Eva, the world’s first transgender voice training mobile app.